Thoughts of a Thief
by Syntastics
Summary: "His mind was spinning, memories dancing behind his eyes, taunting him. He held his head and fell to the floor, deciding it was a very nice place to be." A different sequence of events that took place at Pandemonium!


"Zidane!"

There wasn't any movement from the thief's genome body.

"You've got to wake up Zidane!"

Still his head rested on his shoulder, which hung limply against the throne of hell.

Vivi, a young black mage, looked at his friend Eiko, a summoner from Madain Sari. They had tried shaking, hitting, yelling, but nothing would wake up their fellow blond friend.

"Why did he have to go alone!" Eiko shouted into the air. "He knew he had us! What the heck!"

Vivi shook his head, clutching his too-big, pointy hat to the blackness of his head.

The little summoner kneeled down next to Zidane, his eyes still gently shut. "What are we going to do with you! You stupid, cocky, senseless jerkface!"Eiko's forehead rested against the legs of Zidane's throne, and a silent stream of tears fell from her eyes. "You sweet bastard…" she murmured between sobs. "You just let him kill you! You have better put up a fight…"

Vivi stood motionless, still staring at Zidane's calm face.

"Zidane…?" he murmured. "You didn't… stop… did you?" he asked. The thief gave no response. "Because if you did, there would be a lot of people who would miss you. I didn't even get the chance to say goodbye!"

Vivi chanced a glance at Eiko. Her head was turned away from both Zidane and the mage, but her sobs still were evidence that she was still crying.

"So you can't stop now. You've got to wake up!" Vivi tried tugging on him again, murmuring words of encouragement under his breath, shaking his shoulders, anything he could do to make him wake up.

"Why are you even trying, Vivi!" Eiko shouted, her voice echoing through the emptiness. She choked back a sob. "He's dead! So forget it! We should just get out of here, and go back home! The fight's over, Kuja and Garland won! Let's just go round up the others—"

"Eiko, be quiet!" Vivi suddenly yelled, giving no indication he was paying attention to her. Zidane's tail gave a small twitch, and then another. Soon he blinked, and blinked again. Vivi got off of him, and both he and Eiko stared wide-eyed at him.

"Zidane! Are you alright!" they asked in unison. Zidane stood up slowly, stretching out his muscles. He flexed his fingers a few times, getting used to the feel of them. Something wasn't right, though. He took a step, and soon found out that his leg was covered in dried blood and moved erratically. What was this?

Eiko quickly wiped away her tears and gave him a hug around his middle, squashing him from her unnatural strength for a little girl. Zidane gasped from the touch, and pushed her away.

"Get off of me," he murmured. Eiko looked hurt, but did as he told.

"What the hell are you doing here…?" he asked, clutching his stomach. That seemed to be hurting too.

"We came to save you, of course!" Eiko piped, with a smile as big as her face. "Why didn't you bring us along? You were so stupid—"

"Shut up!"

His words had stunned her to silence, and convinced Vivi that standing behind Eiko would provide greater protection, and did so immediately. Zidane looked away, a grimace on his face. Did he really say that to his friends? It had slipped off of his tongue so easily, like it was natural. He took a step gingerly, but realized the slower he walked the more pain he would be in. He wanted to be out of here, and fast. His mind was spinning, memories dancing behind his eyes, taunting him. He held his head and fell to the floor, now deciding the floor was a very nice place to be.

"Zidane!" his friends shouted, their voices distant and muffled, like speaking underwater. His sight blurred, the background turned night, and Vivi's eyes shape shifted into stars. He closed his eyes again, deciding that this place wasn't so bad. A world without pain was always nice. And he was bound to feel it again if he ever had to tell Dagger that he would have been her killer at Alexandria, or there wouldn't have been a person to save her at Lindblum, if it hadn't been for Kuja. He momentarily thanked his so-called brother, for giving him the chance to meet sweet, sweet Dagger.

Much to Zidane's dismay, he had woken later inside an inn, thankfully with no one in the room. He glanced around—the blue light was familiar, as well as the wallpaper and the flooring.

_Might be the inn where Dagger took a lie-down. _

He paused. Dagger…

Who had brought him here? Did his friends escape? Where was Garland and Kuja now?

But most importantly, who was he? Was he still the same Zidane on the inside that he was before? He thought for a moment, and couldn't remember anything that happened before he woke up. Nothing of a fight, just talk of Kuja and Garland's plan. Zidane vaguely remembered challenging Garland, but did he fight back? He must have, it would have been the source of the blood, right? He clearly lost, and lost pretty badly.

_I don't feel any different… but what I said to Vivi and Eiko certainly was different. That wasn't me talking at all. I never talk that way to any of my friends… even Blank. _

He sat up from the mushy mattress, and immediately decided that lying down was better. _Oh yeah, stomach. Legs. Right._

He looked over to see that his daggers were propped up against a wall next to him, which were also covered in dried blood. It looked as if someone tried to clean them, but gave up eventually. Zidane hoped evilly that it was Garland's blood.

Suddenly a noise interrupted the quiet. Multiple noises. Multiple voices? And footsteps. They were coming his way. Zidane quickly shut his eyes and tried his best to mimic being unconscious, eventually decided to lie on his tail so it wouldn't twitch, hoping no one would notice the difference.

"…it looked pretty bad. I fixed it up, but I'm not the best with that spell. Hopefully I didn't make it worse…" a voice murmured. Probably Eiko's.

"I can't believe that thief went alone. That selfish bastard. He knows damn well that he has us here." Zidane smiled, but quickly switched back to a poker face. Amarant was acting like a part of the team.

But a single voice made his ears perk. "He's okay though. Right? Does he need a second spell?"

"Yeah, probably," Eiko said. "Amarant, where is everyone?"

"Finding Quina. He went off looking for food. He hasn't come back yet."

"Why don't you go help look for him then?" a certain someone asked. "I'll cast cura on Zidane once more."

Eiko smiled, grabbed Amarant's wrist, and took off.

Her footsteps quietly walked closer. She murmured an incantation, and suddenly he was feeling much better.

She knelt down by his bedside, her legs under her and her hands resting on her knees. She stared at a lock of his hair that had fallen over the side of his bed.

"Why did you go alone?" she asked quietly. Zidane debated answering her, but decided that he would remain silent for a little longer. "It could have been a trap. But I'm sure you thought of that."

Dagger turned to look at her hands with interest, eyeing the lines that crisscrossed her palms. "I suppose you just wanted answers, and figured that it would be strange with all of us there if you broke down? Was that what you were afraid of?"

Silence once more.

"You know, I understand. As leader, people think you're not supposed to cry. But everyone is allowed to. Even you, Zidane. And when you wake up, if you think about what those answers were, you can cry if you need to. You can cry on my shoulder if you need to."

There still wasn't a response.

"And, if you think about going somewhere alone next time, you have to remember you have us. You may protect us as leader, but we also protect you. You never have to be alone, Zidane. We all love you, just like you love us."

Zidane sniffed. Why, oh why, did she have to be a princess? And why did he have to be the evil one? He was born and raised as the good guy, all of a sudden to have those ideals shattered… would he follow the harsh truth, or the fruitful lie? All of those months trying to find his homeland, and here he is, portraying the one who would destroy Gaia and rule in a corrupted throne.

Dagger raised her eyebrows. "Zidane? Are you awake?"

He figured now was as best time as any. Quietly, he choked out a 'yes'.

Dagger stood up, her eyes full of feverish delight and hugged Zidane around his neck, but pulled back before he could say 'ow'.

"So, did you hear that or do I have to repeat myself?"

"No, you're fine," he murmured.

Immediately she noticed something wrong. "What happened in there?"

Zidane turned away from her. Certainly she had heard from Vivi and Eiko all he had said to her, and then how he promptly passed out again. But if he were to say Kuja was like his brother, and that Garland had created him, what would she say? To know that he was a puppet in a sick and twisted play?

"You should probably just leave me alone," he said quietly, thinking through the phrase several times before he said it.

He could feel the hurt emanating off of Dagger. He was certainly hurting a lot of people today. Maybe he was a monster.

"Why?"

Even though he knew she would ask this, he had no prepared answer. _Because I almost destroyed Alexandria. Because I'm not even human. _

"Because I'm not the Zidane you think I am."

"Wh…. What do you mean?"

"You know me as the one who kidnapped you the day we met, or the one who told you his search for his parents one day when you couldn't sleep. That's not the real me. I'm not some sweet-talking thief. I'm a monster, one that should have taken your life several times. Had it not been for Kuja's hate, I would have."

"I don't under—"

"I don't have any parents. I'm just a device Garland will use to turn all of the souls of Gaia into Terra's. That includes you."

Vivi and Freya came back with Quina, about to start exclaiming that Zidane had woken up but Dagger interrupted them.

"Then defy him!" she shouted.

Soon Steiner came back with Amarant and Eiko following suit. Freya motioned for them all to be quiet.

"I can't!" he yelled back, louder than she. "I don't know how! He'll just control me, make me say things I don't mean to, I don't even know if I'm the one talking now!" he turned away from her, onto his side, ignoring the pain in his stomach. "Why are you healing a monster? You should take everyone and get out of this hell!"

"Then you're coming with me," Dagger said, but not feeling much confidence in her words.

"You don't understand!" he yelled. "I might kill you, kill you all! Gaia would be better off if you just killed me now!"

"Zidane, I know you're in there. I know that you're not lost, and that you'd never give in to Garland's crazy ideas. I do know that you have a lot to think about, just like I did when Lindblum, Alexandria, and my mother fell."

She paused, taking a moment to reorganize her speech. "He's not controlling you, he's making you think you're being controlled. It's your own life that you're wielding, your role that you're playing. Break free from all that bonds you, because it doesn't mean a thing! You can always take a moment to stop and think, but then we have to keep on moving. We can cry if we want, shed however many tears. But Zidane Tribal, you listen to me, we will walk out of this place alive, and just as we were. Only together can we conquer our fears!"

The lingering effects from her words danced through the air, sending surges of excitement down Vivi and Eiko's spines. Steiner nodded in agreement. Freya and Amarant smiled at each other, having shared hardships, they knew what it was like to be in pain, but triumph through it. Quina eagerly nodded his head as well, his long tongue flapping along with it.

But for Zidane, the effects of her words shone in her eyes. With a fierce determination, she looked at him like she was erasing all of his troubles with the chocolate pearls for eyes. The smoothness of the words lingered in her short, breezy hair, with no trace of any knot. The speech was perfect, cutting him straight to his heart, where it pulsed and sent shocks of awakening throughout his body. He blinked once or twice, perishing thoughts of Garland's haunted face, which were replaced by Dagger's sweet face.

She could tell it, too, for she gave him another hug, this one much longer than the first, which Zidane warmly welcomed. Eiko grabbed Vivi's wrist and ran over to him, dog piling on top of him, but careful to stay clear of his stomach.

"Oof! Hey guys, that kinda hur—"

"We pile on Zidane!" Quina yelled, running over to him, laughing all the way. Steiner and Freya smiled and gave the thief a hug too, and eventually, even Amarant came over and hugged everyone, hovering on top of them.

"Haha! Stupid Zidane, thinking he would ever be alone!"

"Oh guys, what am I—oof!—going to do with you?"

"The feeling is mutual!" Steiner echoed from somewhere under the pile.

Dagger had been stuck in the position she hugged him in, which left her cheek right next to his mouth. Zidane tenderly kissed her quietly, which no one but them heard because of all of their laughing. Dagger blushed furiously, thankful that no one could see her. Zidane wriggled just a little bit to get next to her ear. "I don't know what I would do without you, Dagger. You mean the world to me."


End file.
